Prolegomena to a Modern Theory of Fun

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

—Wallace Stevens

I was in an Uber this morning and my driver GUSTAVO, 22, got to talking about movies. Gustavo was disappointed that films now are just not as fun as they used to be, that their purity as artistic works had been impinged upon by messages, and that themes, when he was younger (citing Toy Story and Aladdin in particular) were of universal interest (e.g., “find your strengths — they are in you!”) whereas today the theme is too often just “climate change bad!” (or whatever). Gustavo would like to go to the movies more but he has been bored too many times.

We cannot afford to lose Gustavo.

To succeed in film, recently you have needed your opening weekend to be about 40% of your budget (unless you’re platforming). So if your budget is $20M, you would like to open at $8M or more. This is a rule of thumb and there are always exceptions of course.

Let’s look at some recent films.

As always, please don’t take this as a personal criticism. I love everyone.

One Battle After Another

Budget: $130M

Opening weekend domestic: $22M (17%)

The Materialists

Budget: $20M

Opening weekend (domestic): $11M (55%)

The Smashing Machine

Budget: $40M

Opening weekend (domestic): $5.8M (15%)

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Budget: n/a

Opening weekend (domestic): $919K (n/a%)

It’s harder to tell what’s profitable these days because the most important lever is the deal with the streamer, which is not public. But as a general matter, those deals are based on box office and the 40% rule is still a good rule of thumb. What can we conclude from some of the recent box office disappointments?

My suggestion is that they aren’t fun enough. Fun is not core to their spirit.

Another message is that making your movie for $20M is much safer than $40M or $80M. Materialists wasn’t amazing but it should be profitable.

Here is the basic map:

You want to be where the red star is. If you’re not fun, you’d better be a masterpiece, and that’s a bad bet. I thought The Brutalist was pretty great, but people didn’t think it looked fun. Making a non-fun masterpiece is hard. Making something fun is easier. It’s climbing downhill.

Before we go further, let me briefly suggest a definition of fun in the context of movies. The elements of fun include:

• Humor

• Romance

• Aesthetics, including music

• Action

• Some kind of novelty (eg a lot of people went to Avatar to see the impressive animation).

(You don’t have to have them all.)

And if those are not on the trailer or on the poster, it doesn’t count.

Times change

The nation’s mood changes. I think that fun is more important than it was say ten years ago. People want to know they’re going to have a good time. They’ve been burned. They have no time for your turgid and contentious screed or your pretentious mood piece. Don’t shoot the messenger.

One Battle After Another doesn’t look fun. DiCaprio looks unglamorous and unhappy. And the other person featured in marketing is a pregnant woman shooting a machine gun, which seems disconcerting. It does not appear that there is a romance. It’s not funny. They look like they need a shower. It’s an uphill climb. We want a downhill climb.

The Smashing Machine looks very serious. It has the Rock but he isn’t smiling and doesn’t look like himself. It’s not funny. I didn’t see a romance in the promotional materials. It looks kind of like The Wrestler, which grossed $26M in 2008.

Kiss of the Spider Woman. This has never been fun.

We’ve been subjected to a long run of unfun movies. For many years, Gustavo and I have been frustrated.

People have this idea that in the old days you could just do whatever artsy movie and it would do well if it was artistically good. This is not really true. Look at Room With a View. Beautiful film. Big romance. Shakespeare in Love. Fun. Big romance. The English Patient. Not for me but it did have a big romance.

The Master. No romance, not funny, not fun.($16M.)

You like There Will Be Blood? You think it was better than the English Patient? Well English Patient grossed $79M in the US and Canada. There Will be Blood grossed $40M, half as much. Out of Africa grossed $87M in 1985 ($261M today). There Will be Blood didn’t have a romance, wasn’t funny, and was basically all guys. I liked it very much subjectively, but it just didn’t have enough core fun elements.

4 Trends

This brings me to four trends I would bet on for the next five years:

• Asia

• Religion

• Comedy

• Hotness

I’m not saying this is what I want. I’m saying this is what I anticipate.

In ten years, we’ll be able to check back and see how it played out.

More Asia

No brainer. Look at Kpop Demon Hunters. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle just had a huge $70M US opening. Talk about fun (aesthetics + action). Not to mention Squid Game. CapCut. Hailuo. TikTok. You should be long Asia culture.

More Religion

When Nietzsche said God is dead, he may have spoken too soon. Religion appears to be growing. Every society needs a story. Are Adam Smith, John Locke and Instagram enough? I think these faith films will continue to do well.

More Comedy

There are certain people who dislike comedy. They don’t get it. They can’t write it. They can’t develop it. They tried to stop it. But the audience likes to laugh, so it’s coming back.

More Hotness

We’ve spent a few years pretending beauty doesn’t matter. That’s not sustainable. People like looking at attractive people — it’s human nature. So hotness is coming back. And with it, actual style. We’ve been in a visual slump — everything shot in the same flat, TV-ish way after peaks like Neon Demon or The Great Beauty. The aesthetic doldrums are ending.

You know what has a lot of fun — comedy, romance, aesthetics, hot people and good music? James Bond. Barbie. Star Wars. Wolf of Wall Street. And: movies like Napoleon Dynamite. It doesn’t have to be huge. It just has to be fun.

So it’s a new time. It’s like 1982 again. It’s the “boom boom era”. It’s like going from silents to sound. Don’t be stuck in the past.

A haiku:

People like to watch

Hot people blowing stuff up

That’s Hollywood, man

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Roy Price is the Kent A. Dorfman Professor of Fun Studies at Yale University and the author of The Fun Manifesto. He had a small part in Revenge of the Nerds (1984).